Lactantius (307
AD) On the Trinity

For
there is one God alone, free, most high, without any origin; for He
Himself is the origin of all things, and in Him at once both the Son
and all things are contained.

Chapter XXIX.-Of the Christian Religion, and of the Union of Jesus
with the Father.

Some one may perhaps ask how, when we say that
we worship one God only, we nevertheless assert that there are two, God the
Father and God the Son:

which assertion has driven many
into the greatest error. For when the things which we say seem to them
probable, they consider that we fail in this one point alone, that we
confess that there is another
God, and that He is mortal. We have already spoken of His mortality: now
let us teach concerning His unity. When we speak of
God the Father and God the Son,

we do not speak of them as
different, nor do we separate each: because the Father
cannot exist without the Son, nor can the Son be separated from the
Father, since the name of Father cannot be given
without the Son, nor can the Son be begotten without the Father.

Since, therefore, the Father makes the Son,
and the Son the Father, they both have one mind,
one spirit, one substance;

but the former is as it were an
overflowing fountain, the latter as a stream flowing forth from it:
the former as the sun, the latter as it were a ray extended from the
sun.

And since He is both faithful to the Most High
Father, and beloved by Him, He is not separated from Him; just as the
stream
is not separated from the fountain, nor the
ray from
the sun:
for the water of the fountain is in the stream, and the light of the
sun is in the ray:

just as the voice cannot be
separated from the mouth, nor the strength
or hand
from the body. When, therefore, He is also spoken of by the
prophets as the hand, and strength, and word of God,

there is plainly no separation;
for the tongue, which is the minister of speech, and the hand, in
which the strength is situated, are
inseparable portions of the body.

We may use an example more closely connected
with us. When any one has a son whom he especially loves, who is
still in the house, and in the power of his father, although he
concede to him the name and power of a master, yet by the civil law
the house is one, and one person is called master. So this world is the one house of God; and the
Son and the Father, who unanimously inhabit the
world, are one God,

for the one is as two, and the two
are as one.

Nor is that wonderful, since the Son is
in the
Father, for the Father loves the Son, and the Father is
in the
Son; for He faithfully obeys the will of the Father,

nor does He ever do nor has done
anything except what the Father either willed or commanded.

Lastly, that the Father and the Son are but
one God,
Isaiah showed in that passage which we have brought forward
before,398 when he said:

"They shall fall down unto Thee,
and make supplication unto Thee, since God is in Thee, and there is
no other God besides Thee."

And he also speaks to the same purport in
another place:

"Thus saith God the King of
Israel, and His Redeemer, the everlasting God; I am the first, and I
am the last; and beside me there is no
God."

When he had set forth two persons, one of God
the King, that is, Christ, and the other of God the Father, who after
His passion raised Him from the dead,

as we have said that the prophet
Hosea showed, who said,

"I will redeem Him from the power
of the grave:

"nevertheless, with reference to each person,
he introduced the words, "and beside me there is no God," when
he might
have said "beside us;

"but it was not right that a
separation of so close a relationship should be made by the use of
the plural number. For there is one God alone, free, most high,
without any origin; for He Himself is the origin of all things, and
in Him at once both the Son and all things are contained.

Wherefore, since the mind and will of the
one is
in the other, or rather, since there is one in both, both are
justly called one God; for whatever is in the Father flows on to the
Son, and whatever is in the Son descends from the Father.

Therefore that highest and matchless God
cannot be worshipped except through the Son. He who thinks that he
worships the Father only, as he does not worship the Son, so he does
not worship even the Father. But he who receives the Son, and bears
His name, he truly together with the Son worships the Father also,
since the Son is the ambassador, and messenger, and priest of the
Most High Father. He is the door of the greatest
temple, He the way of
light, He the guide to salvation, He
the gate of life.